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I HAD ALREADY SUSPECTED THAT she was stuck up
when I saw her small, green eyes. My suspicions were
confirmed when she interrupted the guru.
“Stop that,” she said. “What could you possibly know about
me?”
“Well, then, do it yourself, cupcake,” said the guru, rapping
a pleasant rhythm on the drum with his knuckles. He
smiled so broadly that she blushed.
“I’ll start,” I said, to get her off the hook. But I was too late.
The kiss-ass in cheap sunglasses had beaten me to it. He
had reached up in the air and snapped his fingers.
Marlon was his name, he deigned to tell us. He dragged out
the first syllable forever. I looked over at him worriedly. I
didn’t want to have to share my first name with anyone
else. Fortunately, as he moved past the first syllable, it
turned out we shared just the first three letters. His voice
was calm, almost sluggish, as if he wanted to telegraph with
his tone just how cool he was and just how much our
company bored him. He’d been blind since the age of
seven. That’s all we learned. A degenerative disease of the